


Rewind, In Kind

by Magics_Mystique



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Time Travel, Tom Riddle Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 20:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17107652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magics_Mystique/pseuds/Magics_Mystique
Summary: Harry's words were different from everyone else. It takes getting stuck in the past, in a school with Tom Riddle, to finally, truly understand them.





	Rewind, In Kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bloop18](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloop18/gifts).



> Merry Christmas bloop18 (Blop)! I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a brilliant year to come! Your art is amazing and I feel so privileged being able to write this for you this Christmas.
> 
> I tried to incorporate as many of the things that you like as I could. I also took one of your prompts and ran with it a bit, it ended up being a bit longer then I was planning but I hope you like how it turned out!

**Soulmate /n/ A persons predestined parter. Identifiable through the first words they say to each other, written somewhere on their body.**

_Harry knew that these words were just for him. He sits tracing them in his cupboard long before he can even read and watch them almost shiver under his touch. He chases them with his finger as they slither along his skin, hiding behind his ear until the cupboard door is finally yanked open by his aunt. No one else he knew’s words moved. No. His were special. They were only for him._

 

Waking up in the Hogwarts’ infirmary was nothing new, Harry couldn’t remember what trouble he’d gotten into this time but had come to learn that a year at Hogwarts wasn’t complete with out at least one visit. He rolled over and tried to ignore the light streaming through the windows.

“Oh good! you’re awake.” He groaned in response, Madame Pomfrey was unusually chipper today. “It’s about time you woke up, it’s been a good week now.”

“A week!” He tried to spring up but the blankets were tucked in too tightly and he ended up half strangling himself.

“We weren’t sure exactly what was wrong with you so I’m quite happy to see you up at all, to be honest. Some people were starting to lose hope you know. Now then, Mr…” She trails of expectantly.

He stopped fighting with the blankets for a moment and finally pays attention to the hospital wing. All of the windows were in the same position but there were fewer beds and the curtains had a god awful floral design that immediately reminded him of Ms. Figg. Which was not a good thing. Something was very wrong. The things inside Ms. Figg’s house hadn’t been seen anywhere else for at least fifty odd years. 

“Would you calm down!”

Now that the woman pointed it out he was breathing heavily, still tangled in the hospital bed blankets. She slapped a thin, bony hand to his head. She’s definitely not Madame Pomfrey. She’s older, covered in wrinkles and has the air of someone who has dealt with a lot in her long life.

“Who are you?” Harry’s voice is croaky from disuse and he looks for the glass of water that Madame Pomfrey normally leaves by his bed but it’s not present.

The woman tsk’s “Madame Anderson, now lay back down! The Headmaster should be here any minute.”

Harry relaxed back into the numerous pillows that Madame Anderson had been pilling behind him. Dumbledore would be able to answer his questions. 

The man who crept through the doors a few minutes later was not Dumbledore though. His beard was way too short and Harry was actually able to look at his clothing without cringing.

“Boy have we got some questions for you! You were found down by the gates and no one know how you got here…” The man looked really familiar, Harry could have sworn that he’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t quite place where. 

“Who… are you?

“Headmaster Dippet, do you know where you are?” Harry shook his head mutely having a very bad feeling about this. Dippet had been the Headmaster before Dumbledore, he knew that. It was hard not to after all of the history lesson with Dumbledore studying Tom Riddle’s life over the last year. 

“You are currently at Hogwarts School of Witch Craft and Wizardry.” Dippet was obviously waiting for some kind of reaction so Harry nodded. “Do you know how you got here?”

“No sir.”And he really didn’t. The last thing he remembered was studying in the common room with Ron and Hermione. “Can I ask… What date is it?”

“Saturday, September 8th.” 

“and the year?” Dippet peered at him oddly.

“1945.” Well shit.

 

_Hermione sees he’s words for the first time soon after she wakes up from being petrified. His words had been moving oddly since the chamber incident and weren’t being as cautious to stay hidden as they usually were._

_“That’s amazing Harry! Your soulmates first language was magical!”_

_“What?”_

_Hermione rolls her eyes fondly “Honestly, it wouldn’t hurt to pick every now and then. Magical languages are the only ones that move.”_

_“What do you mean by a magical language?”_

_“You know, like Mermish, Gobbledegook…”_

_“Parseltongue?”_

_“I suppose, it's not really a first language though is it and it's the first thing your soulmate says to you in their native language which is written on your skin” She studies it for a bit longer. “So you don’t actually know what your words are?”Harry shakes his head mutely, if he tells her he can understand them then he’ll have to tell her what they say. He doesn’t want the pity._

_He goes to the library later that day, perhaps if he can find out what language it is… but he never finds anything._

 

When Harry is finally released by Madame Anderson, they move up to the headmaster’s office. He had managed to pass himself off as ‘Harrison Evans’ a half-blooded orphan of the war against Grindelwald which had apparently only ended the week before. 

He’s not sure whether he should tell anyone he’s from the future, Hermione had managed to put the fear of God into him back in third year. He’d also seen the kind of things that they kept in the department of mysteries and had absolutely no intention of ending up there. No, thank you.

He almost confides in the younger Dumbledore but when he sees him he looks so worn and haggard that Harry’s not sure that he would be able to help. He’s also lacking a long beard and it freaks Harry out more than he wants to admit.

“Now then, we’ll put you in with the sixth year but first you’ll need to be sorted.” Oh, he’d also managed to get himself enrolled in Hogwarts. He’d need the library if he ever wanted to figure out how to get back to his own time… and it’s his home.Harry picked up a glass of water from Dippet’s desk and took a large gulp.

Harry not sure if he should try and be placed in another house besides Gryffindors. He’d heard that Ravenclaw had a private library which may contain information that could help him. But before he can contemplate it further the hat had already been dropped on his head and shouted out ‘Slytherin!’ before it even covered his eyes fully.

The hell? Harry was frankly surprised and marginally pissed. Wasn’t the hat supposed to take his choices into consideration?

Dippet was chatting away about how brilliant it was and how he would get Hogwarts head boy to show Harry around.

The door opened. “And this would be our finest student now.” Harry turned around. The boy was certainly fine, with perfectly coiffed pitch black hair and high, aristocratic cheekbones.

“Tom Riddle?” Harry choked on the water he'd been sipping. 

“That would be me,” his voice was unfairly smooth and Harry absently wondered if he practiced raising one eyebrow in front of the mirror. One corner of his mouth was pulled up in a smirk that Harry really wanted to wipe off his face, he could think of a few ways of doing so… his first preference being via hex, definitely not any way that would involve getting closer. He hadn’t realised that Tom Riddle would still be at Hogwarts.

He took another drink to avoid the temptation of reaching for his wand but Riddle stepped closer patting him on the back. His _benevolent_ gesture hiding his face from Dippet’s view. “Now be a good boy and swallow properly”.

This time the water tried to exit through his nose, leaving Harry feeling like he was burning on the inside. He spat the rest back into the cup as he tried to recover, quickly wiping his mouth to remove the undignified trail of drool that it caused and tried not to look at Riddle with watering eyes. 

Dippet obviously didn’t seem to see anything amiss and if anything was beaming at Riddle even wider.

“I was hoping you could show young Harrison here around. He has just been sorted into Slytherin and will be in with the sixth year boys.”

“Oh?” Riddle’s hand squeezed his shoulder harder than was strictly necessary. “How wonderful.”

What had Harry gotten himself into?

 

_Tom finds something about the new student fascinating, the boy's eyes are familiar, reminding him of himself. They call to him._

 

Harry was very good at blending into the background… or at least he had been before entering the wizarding world. He figured in a time where there was no boy-who-lived and no one expected anything from him he’d be able to lay low until he found a way home. Hogwarts had one of the best magical libraries in the world, there were worse places to be stuck when stranded out of time. 

Of course, he’s wrong. Not about the library, that’s as wonderful as always, but about being able to lay low. 

The other Slytherins have little interest in him, he’s a half-blood with no political power and very few social skills, but they still keep a wary eye on him. Maybe they learnt from underestimating Riddle. 

He ignores them, like he ignores most of the student. He’s not interested in forming attachments when he is going to be leaving soon… he hopes.

He spends the majority of his time in the library searching for a way home. It’s not much help, it’s hard to find anything when he’s not even sure how he ended up in this time period, but it keeps him busy and keeps his grade up. Hermione would be proud. It seems to only amuse Riddle.

Riddle is a… riddle. Harry’s not sure what’s he’s done to pique his attention. He pops at the most random of time, always with a witty comment and sly smile - ready to poke fun at anything and anyone. Most of the time it’s either unduly sexual or belittling and despite Harry being sure that Riddle actually believed a lot of what he snarked, it was laughable tame when compared to what Voldemort would do in the future. 

Riddle’s snarly observations of their fellow student’s were surprisingly accurate as well. Harry probably shouldn’t find it as endearing as he does though.

 

_Harry is five when he is finally able to fully understand what his words say. It sounds too much like something the Dursley's would say. His soulmate was supposed to be his ticket away but he didn’t want to ruin his soulmates life like he had the Dursley’s. Perhaps it would be better if he never met them. They were going to hate him as soon as they met him anyway._

 

Tom Riddle is amazingly popular.  The older years have a healthy, or sometimes unhealthy, respect for him and Harry has to wonder what Riddle had to do to them to achieve that.  The younger years adore him and Harry is amazed by how patient he can be with them and the amount of homework help he gives out. Even if he is discreetly grooming them to become his future groupies. 

He’d kind of assumed that the future Dark Lord had the head boy title because of his influence over the headmaster not because he was actually good with the other student. Good being relative, of course, this was Riddle he was talking about. It also endeared him to the female population to a ridiculous extent and if the rumors that Harry had heard were true then Riddle made good use of that.

He wondered what those girls would think in the future when they realised that they had done the do with you-know-who, or if any of them were even still alive in his time. He couldn’t see how they could all be dead though, there seemed to be an awful lot of them. Not that he cared. Much.

 

_Tom was born with his own name on his arm. ‘Tom Riddle’ was scratched out in black ink. Etched into the cracks of his skin. It’s so common that chances are he’ll meet his soul mate and never know. Murmurs about ‘the poor darling’ follow him down the street. He hates it, he hates them, he hates his soul mate but most of all he hates him self for caring at all._

 

He’s having a bad day. It’s been a couple of months now. He misses his friends. That’s his excuse for not just walking away.

“Leave Tom alone you mudblood!”

Harry stopped, raised a single eyebrow and looked down his nose at the fifth year Slytherin in front of him. He’d practiced this particular look in front of the mirror a couple of times but was still glad that despite being on the shorter side he was glad to still have a few inches on the younger student. 

He probably wasn’t supposed to find a flicker of satisfaction in the way that the student visibly paused. 

“And you are?” He’d like to say that he was channeling his inner Draco Malfoy but he sounded so much like Hermione the first day they’d met that Harry had to restrain a slightly maniacal grin. 

“I’m Hemmingway Nott.” He puffed out his chest “and Tom shouldn’t have to handle the likes of you.”

“But it’s not like you’ve got anything for him to handle.” Harry deliberately glanced down. Nott spluttered while those who had stopped in the hallway to watch the spectacle snickered. What’s the harm in playing the Slytherin game a bit anyway? He’s got no one to loose here.

 

“Interested in a little fun Evans?” Gryffindor had won the quirdtich match against Slytherin and Harry couldn’t deny that he felt a little bit of vindictive pleasure at that. It looked like someone had also snuck some fire whiskey in for the obligatory after party. 

He did like to think that perhaps society had evolved in the fifty odd years before his own time, since he’d never had to deal with drunk propositions before. He wasn’t that naive though. He just hadn’t had to deal with he hormonal teenage boys propositioning him before. But it was more likely because the only boy he had only every hung our with Ron and his teaspoon worth of emotions.

“Nah, I’m good thanks.” He raised a friendly hand and waived at them off.

“Why, are you taken?”

“Yeah, for granted.” He mumbled good naturedly, intending to just keep walking but Harry felt his skin prickle and knew that he wasn’t alone in to corridor. An elbow was laid almost casually on his shoulder and Harry tried not to melt towards the touch while also being deeply offended because he wasn’t _that_ short.

“And if he is?” Riddle’s voice was as silky smooth as always but there was something dangerous about it, a promise.

“Whoa Riddle, it was just an offer.”

“And I am offering for you to leave just once.” The ringleader held his hands up in surrender, his friends having already started to make hasty retreats. 

“What was that?” He shrugs Riddle’s arm off, turning to face him. Riddle is close enough that he call feel his breath. Harry refuses to look way though, fingers clenching by his side. He’s not sure what he want’s to do with them though. Wrap them around Riddle’s neck perhaps (a _nd pull him closer until he can feel Riddle’s breath only on his lip, until he can reach out with his tongue and…_ )

“I thought you may have wanted me to _handle_ it, Darling.” His voice drops even lower and leans closer still, breath as warm as he had imagined “If you get to claim me, then I get to claim you.” 

Harry blindly pushes Riddle away harder than he planned to and the boy collides with he corridor wall hard but Harry’s not paying attention. He’s remembering Voldemort and the graveyard and that the boy in front of him murdered his parents, his godfather and tortured his friends. What was he doing? “I could never… with _you_.” 

If he’d been paying attention he may have noticed the stormy look that came over Riddle but he was too busy trying not to run as he all but fled.

 

_He asks his aunt what his words say just once. Pulling his hair back and showing her the string of words that are hiding curled around his ear. She can’t read it and thinks that the squiggles are dirt._

_She slaps him over the head and tells him to go scrub away the filth. While he scrubs until his skin is bleeding his world flow onto his his face and snuggle up against the odd shaped scar on he’s forehead. It's comforting._

 

It’s been a week and Harry hasn’t spoken to a soul since he'd pushed Riddle away in the hallway. Riddle had a constant dark air around him and Harry was being boycotted by the rest of Slytherin house. He doesn’t mind but he’s getting lonely. It reminds him of his time at the Dursley’s and… he _misses_ the jokes and snark.

He was slowly working his way through the common room, nose in the last relevant book the library had on time travel. He’s had no luck so far and he’s not even sure there is a way back to his own time except by living out his days. He’s been in the time for months now. Students would be going home for the Christmas break in a few days. Which explained why the room was unusually crowded, students taking the opportunity to spend a final night or two with their friends.

“Yo Evans, are you sure you shouldn’t have been in Ravenclaw with all the other bookworms?” Harry sighed. Not only had that insult been disgustingly weak but apparently he was also fair game now that Riddle had removed his favour. This was the first time anyone had openly called him out though. He looked over to the couch by the fire where Riddle was obviously holding court or whatever he did to entertain his sycophantic followers. Riddle’s eyes were piercing into him, unreadable but it was Rosier, someone who Harry hadn’t had many dealings with, who had shouted mockingly across the room.

“Are you sure you should have ever received a Hogwarts letter?” It probably would have been smarter to have stayed silent but the book in his hand was depressing him and Riddle still hadn’t stopped staring at him. Rosier glanced at Tom as well and seeing no warning signs, step forward emboldened. He’s already drawn his wand and Harry cautiously grips his as well. 

“If you look up traitor in the dictionary Evan’s, you’ll find a picture of your ugly mug.”

“Yeah, well at least my dictionary doesn’t have pictures, moron.” Rosier chucks a curse at him and Harry feels surprisingly thrilled throwing his own back. Perhaps he’s itching more for a of a fight then he had realised. He’s been studying some advanced spells with Riddle in the library and experimentally uses them watching in amusement as Rosier starts to get flustered. He’s not bad but he’s not very creative either and Harry had no qualms about destroying the Slytherin common room.

Harry watched as Rosier desperately threw himself to the side of a spell sent a slice of light shooting his way. It was harmless but it looked like Rosier didn’t want to take the chance. “Why are you playing and to get, when you’re already hard to want?” Harry taunted. 

Rosier lets out an angry snarl and glances to the side. Harry followed his gaze and was to busy looking at Riddle to notice the incoming cutting curse until it’s too late. It clips his arm, the blood soaking through his sleeve quickly. At least he finally sees a flicker of something in those dark eyes.

“You’re a filthy little half-blood Evans.” Rosier pants. He only realises his mistake a second too late. There is a collective holding of breaths throughout the room.

“If you want to involve blood in this Rosier then we can.” Riddle had elegantly risen, removed his wand and was gently caressing it “Do we need to have another example on blood positions… and where it shouldn’t be?”

Rosier shook his head and scrambled away as Tom stalked forward towards where he and Harry ended up in the middle of the room during their duel. Long fingers dug into his chin and forced him to look up at the young dark lord who was looking out over the room. 

“Mr. Even’s here is an example of why you do not question my orders. I told you not to you touch him. And yet a few of you… ignored me.” He made eye contact with anyone who dared to make eye contact until no one dared look at them.

_“I hate you, you ruin everything you touch.”_ He’s roughly turning Harry’s chin; observing every freckle, line, and scar. His eyes linger on the lightning bolt hidden by Harry’s hair. _“Bastard.”_

“Actually unlike you, my Parent’s were married.” But Harry is answering on instinct because he knows that exact sentence, even if it’s spoken fonder then he ever imagined it being. 

It can’t be his words though. He and Tom had spoken numerous times. It was just a coincidence that Riddle had spoken the same words that his soulmate would one day greet him with.

“ _Can you understand me?_ ”

_“Of course I understand you, I’m not a simpleton!”_

If it was possible the room had grown even quieter. Riddle is staring at him with an inscrutable expression.

“You’re a parselmouth?”

“A what?” Riddle’s hand on his jaw tightened painfully.

“You’re a parselmouth as well?”

A parselmouth… they’d been speaking parseltongue? But he’d only heard English. There was no way that he’d unknowingly been speaking the snakes parseltongue! There weren’t even any snakes around!

But he remembered Morffin and Marvolo speaking parseltongue in the pensive and how naturally it came to them without a snake in sight. How to Harry it had sounded like normal English.

He could imagine that to a baby parseltongue would come much easier than English. Harry could just picture a tiny Tom Riddle hissing away in a cot at the orphanage, the matrons thinking that it was the normal kind of breathy sounds that babies make. 

Perhaps parseltongue had been Tom’s first language? Was that possible? No wonder he’d never been able to figure out what language his words were in. He hadn’t even realised that parseltongue could be written down. 

But that meant that there was a distinct possibility that Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, was his soul mate. It was too much.Harry tore his face away from Tom’s grasp and dashed away with no real destination in mind. Away from the common room, away from the stares, and away from the cruelty of fate.

 

“Harrison! Wait!” He’d barely gotten one corridor away when Tom’s long fingers curled around his wrist and pulled him to a jarring stop. 

Harry watched as his words, normally so cautious and hidden, surged down his arm to curl around Tom’s hand in turn.

“Tom?” And when had he stopped referring to the other boy as Riddle?

“You’re a parselmouth?” Tom was busy staring at Harry’s words though and there was no way that he couldn’t connect them to what he had said barely a minute ago. “This is…” He traces them the same way Harry used to when he was a child. As if they are a treasure, there is a possessive glint it Tom’s eyes. “These are mine.”

Harry wasn’t sure how to respond to that, everything was happening so suddenly. He hadn’t expected Tom Riddle, Voldemort to be… Oh god. Voldemort was his soul mate. He was getting hysterical, there was no way that this was happening. Voldemort had killed so many that he loved, had be trying to kill _him_ for years. Could soulmates even kill each other? He’d never heard of it happening. 

He was gasping and everything was muffled. Was the ground getting closer? He wasn’t sure.

The wizarding world was expecting him to kill his souls mate? How could fate be this cruel? Hadn't he already been through enough, lost enough to… his vision was starting to go black. He’s about to pass out when a pair of lips seal over his and tongue is already invading his mouth. 

He stops thinking for a minute and just responds, his own tongue pushing back. He’s never done this before and at first, he’s clumsy but as Harry comes back to himself he mages to push into their mouth and gain enough dominance to be able to pull away.

It's Tom who's pushing him up against the castle wall. Rough stone digging into his back, he’d be sliding down if it wasn’t for the arm’s bracketing him on either side taking most of his weight. They gently pull him forward and lower him down onto the ground. 

T om follows him down and repositions them so that he is sitting with his back against the wall and Harry is held snugly against his chest. Tom just sits there. Harry half curled into him on his lap, breathing. Tom has his wand out but he’s pointing it at Harry’s arm and cleaning away the blood before murmuring a healing spell. 

Harry felt safer than he ever had before, sitting a dark corridor wrapped in the arms of the future dark lord.

Was it okay to be selfish for once? 

There was no one depending on him to protect them. 

He wants this. He wants his soul mate and the future that fate is supposed to promise them. He’s not sure how it’s going to work between him and Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, but the universe obviously thinks it will be fine and who is he to argue with that?

Tom dropped a surprisingly gentle kiss on the top of Harry’s head.

Harry pushes closer into Tom’s embrace, listening to the slow beat of his heart.

( _In the years to come this becomes one of Harry’s favourite things to do while they lay in bed together._

_One day Tom asks him why._

_“To remind my self that you have a heart.” he jokes._

_“I have a heart but it’s not there.” He slides down and gently places a kiss on Harry chest “It’s here.” He declares in all seriousness._ )

“I heard that kissing could help stop a panic attack.” Tom sounds rather smug with himself.

“Go fuck your self.”

“But it’s so much more fun with two.” Harry let out a started laugh. 

If the next morning he was sitting closer to Tom’s right then is merely friendly then it was no one’s business but his own, was it? 

(Although it may have been Tom’s as well judging by the cat who got the canary grin he’s hiding behind a slice of toast)

**Author's Note:**

> I am so glad that I joined the Tomarry Discord group recently, everyone is incredible and amazing and it's really gotten me back into writing. Thank you to everyone who organised the Fanfiction Secret Santa Exchange this year! Merry Christmas!


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